Marcellus as Hermes Logios (reduced)

myminifactory

This greatly diminished replica originates from the original marble sculpture displayed at The Louvre (MR 315). Initially thought to represent Germanicus it is now widely accepted that the work portrays Marcellus the Younger, a Roman consul and nephew of Augustus. The statue depicts him as an orator in the stance of the Hermes Logios, the god of eloquence. It was created two years after Marcellus' death, possibly on his uncle's personal order as a memorial monument. The Hermes Logios (also formerly known as Mercury the Orator) is a Hellenistic sculpture of the god Hermes in his form as a psychopompus, a conveyor or conductor of souls through the underworld. The tortoise, on which the Athenian sculptor Cleomenes has signed his work, recalls the invention of the lyre (Hermes made the lyre from a tortoise shell). "Cleomenes, son of Cleomenes from Athens"